‘Hamilton’ and Company: Tony Award Nominees in a Season That Reflected the World

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CreditJeff Rogers

May 11, 2016

Tickets sell for a thousand dollars apiece. Michelle Obama calls it “the best piece of art in any form that I have ever seen in my life.” The show’s director, let alone its charismatic cast, is a late-night TV talk-show guest.

It’s been awhile since a Broadway show earned the across-the-board adulation that has greeted “Hamilton,” which, among other accolades, was nominated for more Tony Awards than any show in history. (The ceremony airs June 12 at 8 p.m. on CBS).

But Lin-Manuel Miranda’s hip-hop retelling of the nation’s founding turned out to be one of several shows making for a strikingly diverse, unusually urgent season. The theater critics for The New York Times, Ben Brantley and Charles Isherwood, along with the theater editor, Scott Heller, recently compared notes on the year that was, and what it might mean for Broadway’s future.

SCOTT HELLER It seems appropriate that the season was in effect bookended by “Hamilton” and “Shuffle Along,” which were both the biggest vote getters and had much to say about race and American history.

CHARLES ISHERWOOD I agree that they make perfect bookends. “Shuffle Along” reclaims a musical more or less lost to history and affirms the importance of black artists to Broadway going back almost a century. It’s nicely fitting that it should appear in the same season as “Hamilton,” which re-envisions American history through a new lens: emphasizing, through both its nontraditional casting and its story, the ideals of inclusiveness that are at the heart of American history. We are and always have been a nation of immigrants, after all, which makes the new stirrings of xenophobia in the country so dispiriting. “Hamilton” may just be a musical, but it’s a nice cultural rebuke.

BEN BRANTLEY Both musicals are works of reclamation, and yet they’re so different. Each is a reminder that there’s more than one way to control the narrative (to use the most overused phrase du jour) and to translate history into the present tense. “Hamilton” is the more truly organic of the two works in that sense; its audacity is in turning contemporary musical style into an expression of a spirit of revolt, of cockiness, of daring that infused a great revolution of the past.

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From left, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Renée Elise Goldsberry, Phillipa Soo and Jasmine Cephas Jones in “Hamilton.”CreditSara Krulwich/The New York Times

“Shuffle Along” is of course more annotative, with illustrative detours and asides that give us context for a great show of decades ago. One quick aside on another, very different musical, which I just saw: “On Your Feet!,” which is in itself a sort of rebuke to the xenophobia you mention, Charles. Most pointedly, there’s the moment when Emilio Estefan says to the record producer who doesn’t want to sell Latino music to American audiences: “Remember my face. This is the face of America.”

HELLER I didn’t expect the word “xenophobia” to come up so quickly, but it’s that kind of political season — and Broadway season, I guess. Is it a fluke that the shows this year seemed in dialogue with the presidential campaign? Do you as critics inevitably watch through that lens? Do audiences?

ISHERWOOD Well, it was certainly hard not to watch “The Humans,” Stephen Karam’s play about a middle-class family under intense pressures, and not think of all the talk of income inequality and the increasingly beleaguered middle classes. It quite specifically invoked all sorts of things on people’s (and politicians’) minds: the expense for care of the elderly, the staggering amounts of student debt that young people are stuck with, the fragility of jobs even for people who have held them for years, wage stagnation. I am making it sound like a bunch of talking points, but the marvel of the play is how naturally these things are integrated into the play.

BRANTLEY This was definitely a season offstage in which it was impossible to turn off the sounds of the news being made. So it was gratifying to find plays that were indeed in dialogue with real life, including a play from many decades ago, like “The Crucible,” a parable of political persecution that acquires newly haunting resonance in a 21st-century context. One thing I found fascinating that it had in common with the excellent “The Humans” (obliquely) was a sense of the supernatural somehow hovering at the edges of and distorting the topical — appropriate to a moment in which life seems increasingly surreal.

ISHERWOOD On another note, I was fascinated that we saw two Ivo van Hove productions — “The Crucible” and “A View from the Bridge” — on Broadway in a single season. If you had told me 10 years ago this would be the case, I’d have laughed in your face. (Not yours, Ben!) But this brings up an interesting point: While the season was rich in diversity in terms of the actors onstage, and the many nonwhite actors who received Tony nominations (14, I believe — take that, Oscars!), it was also diverse in terms of style. Mr. van Hove’s productions, and John Doyle’s spare and revelatory revival of “The Color Purple,” stripped away the usual naturalistic veneer and, remarkably, managed to expose the emotional and moral problems the characters are facing with a potency that really pinned you to the back of your seat.

BRANTLEY Agreed, Charles.

HELLER Let’s not move on before talking about the diversity of performers onstage. Raw numbers are worth celebrating, especially in relation to the movie industry’s failures, but are there particular aspects to the casting we saw this season that feel especially significant or heartening?

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From left, Jennifer Hudson, Cynthia Erivo, Isaiah Johnson and Kyle Scatliffe in “The Color Purple.”CreditSara Krulwich/The New York Times

BRANTLEY When I feel most excited about “inclusiveness” is when a play uses a mixed-race cast, and you accept it as a given. “Hamilton” is obviously a very strategic reversal of the usual dead-white-men lineup. But look, again, at “The Crucible,” in which actors are cast so defiantly against the expected type. Yet as you watch that production, which Mr. van Hove has set in a sort of timeless (yet oh so familiar) world, you don’t think: Oh, this is Salem. Would John Proctor be married to a black woman? In the best of all possible worlds, the old archetypes are irrelevant. We see this constantly now in productions of Shakespeare, and at the opera. Obviously I’m not saying we should do “A Raisin in the Sun” with a white cast, but a cross-cast Chekhov, or Ibsen? Fine by me.

HELLER Mr. van Hove and John Doyle — two non-Americans reworking very American scripts. Does it take an outside eye to make us look at ourselves and our classic texts in new ways?

BRANTLEY No, not necessarily. Think of what the Drama Dept., a very American group of young’uns in the 1990s, did with forgotten Tennessee Williams classics or even “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.” And when you see a very conventional production like the current “Long Day’s Journey Into Night,” you don’t think, oh well, leave it to a Brit (in this case, Jonathan Kent) to tell us about ourselves. Mr. van Hove and Mr. Doyle have stylistic visions that I think go beyond their respective nationalities. What’s exciting, as Charles was saying earlier, is the sophistication and daring they bring to whatever they address (with mixed results, admittedly). But this season they’re both aces. Come to think of it, this may be the most sophisticated season, in terms of grown-up plays and inventive approaches, that I’ve known on Broadway during my tenure at The Times.

HELLER That’s a big statement. Charles?

ISHERWOOD Well, I haven’t been at The Times as long as Ben, but have been seeing New York theater for — er, a long time now — and I would agree that I can’t remember a season so rich in works that, 20 years ago, would have been considered far too radical for Broadway in terms of subject matter or style. But I’m still brooding a bit on Scott’s question about whether directors (British) are more at ease with what is called nontraditional casting. For me, it was Audra McDonald’s casting as Carrie Pipperidge in “Carousel” more than 20 years ago that made a significant statement — and launched a mighty career. And that was also directed by a Brit, Nicholas Hytner.

BRANTLEY Audra may well be remembered as one of the great examples of how talent made race irrelevant and also made us think less literally about who should be cast. One of the real joys and advantages of theater over film is that plays create a universe in which the idea of “playing” someone else is essential. We are far more willing to see beyond the physical, I think, or to let an actor or actress convince us that he or she is something other than who you first see.

HELLER Should we take this moment to agree — she was robbed of a Tony nomination for “Shuffle Along” — and move on?

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Audra McDonald, center, in “Shuffle Along.”CreditSara Krulwich/The New York Times

ISHERWOOD It was a tough year, and a good one for actresses in musicals. But in an odd way, I find it refreshing (I daresay she doesn’t) that the nominating committee didn’t feel that she had to be included. I would have included her, but I won’t say whom I would kick out.

BRANTLEY Audra was so damn good in “Shuffle Along.” And every time I think I’m tired of her being so unvaryingly wonderful — at least the idea of such perfection — then I see her do something entirely new, as she does here, even sending up the sort of great lady of the theater persona that has been thrust upon her. Not that I take Tonys all that seriously as reflections of merit, but the risks she takes here, and delivers on, do deserve some sort of acknowledgment.

ISHERWOOD O.K., I raise a white flag: I agree she was brilliant. But let’s not forget that there were some unusually strong performances throughout that show: I liked Billy Porter a lot and Brandon Victor Dixon. But anyway, enough about Audra. She has six Tonys!

BRANTLEY Talk about audacity! Daring to apply the language, rhythms and sense of moment of a Shakespearean history to a topical situation most commonly hashed over in gossip magazines. And for me, Mike Bartlett, the playwright, pulls it off. In a sense, “King Charles III” is the reverse of “Hamilton” in its technique: It uses an antique style to consider the present (and illuminate both the past and the present), while “Hamilton” uses contemporary vernacular (of language, music, movement) to resurrect events of hundreds of years ago.

ISHERWOOD I agree that “KC3,” as I will call it, is a welcome stylistic addition to the season, but frankly, I found it more style than substance. Clever, to be sure, but what’s that famous lyric: “Ya gotta get a gimmick.”

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From left, Erin Wilhelmi, Saoirse Ronan, Ashlei Sharpe Chestnut and Elizabeth Teeter in “The Crucible.”CreditSara Krulwich/The New York Times

BRANTLEY I curiously did find it moving, as I did “The Father” (another play that might be said to be gimmick-driven). Mr. Bartlett’s style, I thought, became a means of evoking a claustrophobic, tradition-bound world into which these people were born. And there was something about the tension between the style and substance, the aspiration and the reality, in Tim Pigott-Smith’s performance in the title role that moved me to tears.

ISHERWOOD No tears here! Though I will confess to some others at shows this season.

HELLER You still haven’t forgiven the royals for Diana, Charles.

BRANTLEY So what shows made you cry?

ISHERWOOD Oy, do I really have to answer? I’ll say I was quite moved by “The Color Purple,” “The Humans,” “Eclipsed” and, actually, a show we haven’t mentioned, “Fiddler on the Roof,” because in a disarming way it seemed, like many shows this season, to be speaking to what’s going on in the world right now. The sight of the population of Anatevka trudging off to an unknown future, as so many hundreds of thousands of people have been forced to do in recent years, I found almost unbearably sad.

BRANTLEY True, for sure. I also misted up during the “Do You Love Me?” duet, which seemed less maudlin and unforced in this naturalistic interpretation. And — forgive me, snobs — but I even let all the buttons be pressed as I watched the showbiz soap opera of “On Your Feet!,” which I admired as one of the more well-tooled jukebox musicals of recent years.

ISHERWOOD Oh, and I forgot to mention I wept through all of “Disaster!”

HELLER You and the producers, ba-dum-bum.

BRANTLEY I was disappointed that so few shows made use of the artistry of Beyoncé.

ISHERWOOD Funny you should mention Beyoncé. One issue the roaring success of “Hamilton” has raised is whether Broadway made a breakthrough this year in terms of squeezing itself into the pop-culture conversation. The soundtrack — or should I say, original cast album — crossed over to the rap charts. The book is a best seller. Is this really going to make people start worshiping at the altar of Audra? Doubtful. But what’s important, I think, is that, of the shows with racially diverse casts, three (“Hamilton,” “Shuffle Along” and “The Color Purple”) have been popular hits. That’s not insignificant on Broadway, which is a fiercely commercial marketplace. Let us hope it portends more openness.

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A scene from the musical “Fiddler on the Roof.”CreditSara Krulwich/The New York Times

BRANTLEY Amen to that. Sorry for the earlier sarcasm about the divine Beyoncé. In another sense, as you suggested, Charles, “Hamilton” is a bit like her “Lemonade” in that the discussion around it has become so thick and intense that it’s sometimes difficult to see the real thing. I have to say how relieved I was when I returned to “Hamilton” — feeling pretty cynical about the blind worship it was inspiring — that I enjoyed it even more the second and third times. Sometimes Pet Rocks deserve the attention they receive.

ISHERWOOD First comparison of “Hamilton” to Pet Rocks! Probably the only thing it hasn’t been compared to. I frankly have some qualms about the dramaturgy — yes, the sound you hear is lightning striking me dead. I think the production has a slight show-us-don’t-tell-us problem that is niftily disguised by Andy Blankenbuehler’s movement for the ensemble. But let’s not quibble about a show that is so conceptually and musically audacious that it’s single-handedly made people wake up and say: “Broadway, what’s that? Maybe I’ll try it.” (People who can afford tickets, of course.)

HELLER One of the last Broadway sensations to match “Hamilton” was “The Producers,” back in 2001, which has won more Tonys than any show to date. Yet “The Producers” didn’t end up having staying power. Could we be saying something similar about “Hamilton” after Lin-Manuel Miranda and his tremendous original castmates leave the show?

BRANTLEY Well, seeing Javier Muñoz in the title role (during a Sunday matinee) was a great relief. The balance of the show shifted a bit, but not in any deleterious way. I think the problem with “The Producers” is that Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick, the original stars, had those roles couture-fitted on them, and no one else could ever wear them with quite the same ease or style. “Hamilton” is more a cast of archetypes, I think, that would allow room for original, idiosyncratic definition within the outlines of each part.

ISHERWOOD Also, it has become a cultural phenomenon, not just a Broadway phenomenon. It will be interesting to see how it evolves as the years (and years) go by.

HELLER Why do you think it has become such a cultural phenomenon? Is there a bigger audience than we knew out there hungry to engage with Broadway?

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Tim Pigott-Smith in “King Charles III.”CreditSara Krulwich/The New York Times

BRANTLEY It’s a musical that sounds more like what audiences are hearing on the radio than we’ve had in a long time — and not in any gratuitous way. Even “Rent” and “Spring Awakening” (and “Hair” long before it) didn’t seem to gather the music that’s in the air, from the air, and ground it, as it were, on a Broadway stage as “Hamilton” does. And I think in this case, the anachronistic use of that music is what makes the show so incredibly enticing to people. It’s like: Of course it would have been that exciting to be all these determined narcissists. Which the founding fathers had to be, on some level, as well as those noble patriots from our schoolbooks.

ISHERWOOD Ben, what radio stations have you been listening to lately? Are there any left? But seriously, the curious case of “Hamilton,” I think has many causes. It’s a brilliant concept, written by a man well-versed in various styles of music — it ain’t all rap — as those who saw his first show, “In the Heights,” will know.

And I think there is a great or at least significant hunger out there for art that reflects the world — old or new — with fresh eyes. See the renaissance of television, which for decades was mired in formula. Now it’s a new golden age. Let us hope — though I’m not predicting it by any means — that the success of “Hamilton,” and the really strong and diverse (in many ways) Broadway season, means that five years from now we will be talking about a new golden age in the theater.

HELLER Two quick questions: How many times a week do you get asked for advice on getting “Hamilton” tickets?

BRANTLEY Not that often, because I’ve said no to so many people before about helping with tickets that my policy is known. There are people from my past — whom I haven’t heard from in years — who email me with hopes of an avenue to “Hamilton.”

ISHERWOOD Let’s just say that both my nieces have had the grand privilege of seeing “Hamilton,” and leave it at that.

HELLER And when people can’t see “Hamilton” but want to see a great show, what do you tell them?

BRANTLEY “The Crucible,” even though I know it’s not to all tastes. “On Your Feet!,” for those who want the equivalent of an escapist summer movie. And “The Color Purple,” for absolutely anyone.

ISHERWOOD “The Humans,” “The Humans,” “The Humans.”

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page AR6 of the New York edition with the headline: ‘Hamilton,’ Yes, but That’s Not All. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe